My Blog's New Life and A Storytelling Sample

It has been a long time since I have posted.  Keeping up with my new baby, school, and work proved to be a huge challenge.  As I embark on my PDP journey I would like to share my triumphs and challenges as I endeavor to bring new technology and practices into my classroom.  This blog will become a place to share tools, tips, and tricks that I learn along the way.

I am hoping that this page will someday be a resource to look back on not only for myself but for others.  The plan will be to not only look inside what I am doing in my classroom but to have tutorials on how to use some of these tools and make them work in classrooms all over.  

Here's to new challenges, new friends, and finding my place in an ever-changing world of teaching.

In my classroom we are doing a 6 week study on telling a story.  The main focus is on Fairy Tales, as they are familiar and have great sequencing possibilities.  It is simple for Kinders to see the beginning, middle, and end of a story and tell their own version.  One of their choices for retelling is using two great apps on the iPad's we have in our classroom.    

So on to my first tool that I have been using with my students.  I introduced my students to Felt Board this past week and they absolutely love it!  It does cost $2.99 but it has been so worth it!  We started with retelling The 3 Little Pigs together as a class.  When it was time for centers, they jumped right in to make their own stories!

After they created their picture they saved it to the camera roll and moved on to the next App, Educreations. The App is completely free (you do have to create an account) and is simple enough for even my Kinders to use.  I had introduced Educreations a few weeks ago so they were all familiar with how to use it.  They chose their picture from the camera roll and were able to record their story. 

Here is a sample of how it turned out!

Have fun trying it out with your students!